What Is the Difference Between a Human and an Animal?

People usually think that the main difference between a human and an animal is our brain, since it sets humans apart as the more intelli-gent species. This is true, but dolphins, whales, and chimpanzees are also very intelligent. It is a fact that scientists have trained animals to perform, not only different tasks, but also basic mathematical func-tions. Perhaps a trained chimpanzee that can perform basic mathe-matical functions is more intelligent than a human who has never used his brain.

You may be surprised to know that whales can communicate with each other at distances of up to 500 miles. They can also sing a song together, stop the song in the middle while they travel, and then come back and start the song from the same point. If whales can accomplish such a feat, then they may be at least as intelligent as many humans.

So what is the difference between a human and an animal? Howard H. Stevenson has answered it in his book Do Lunch or Be Lunch:

The main difference between a human and an animal is that a human can change his future and an animal cannot.

I agree with him wholeheartedly. For millions of years, animals have been living without changing their conditions. When things get bad they usually adapt to their environments, migrate to other areas, or just die.
So we have to remember that as human beings, we have the ability to change our circumstances, no matter how bad they seem to be. Our future depends only on ourselves.

Source:Revolution 2000 :Are Pakistanis Ready to Pay the Price for Success?

A Simple Way to Wisdom

Once upon a time, a king told his men to search for a simple way through which people could learn wisdom.

The king’s men scattered around the world to find it. After years of searching, they had gathered thousands of books that taught wisdom to people. But when the king looked at the large mound of books, he said,

“It would take a whole lifetime to read these books. I need something much simpler than this.”

So the king’s men selected the top 100 books, but still he was not satisfied. Then they narrowed it down to 10 books, but the king was still not satisfied.
Finally a single book was selected. Again the king asked them to nar-row it down—first to a chapter, then to a page, then to a paragraph, and at last to just one sentence. For a long time the men searched for the single sentence of wisdom that would satisfy the king. The sentence they finally chose was this:

There is no free lunch.

It means that you must pay a price to get what you want in this world.
I first read this story about 10 years ago, and since then I have thought about it many times. It still rings true to me, and I believe that if people can just understand this single sentence, they can learn wisdom.
There is nothing free in this world. We have to work hard and pay a price to get what we want. If we try to get something for free, we are just fooling ourselves.

It has been proven many times that people can get anything that they strive for— if they are willing to pay the price for it.

There is no free lunch.

You must work hard and pay a price to get what you want in this world.

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To succeed,look at things not as they are,but as they can be.:)

It was back in1981, when I was in my first semester of Applied Physics at the University of Karachi, that I was faced with a number of challenges. First, as I had previously studied only in my native language, Urdu, it was very difficult for me to study in English, the language at the university. Also, I had no interest in the subject of Applied Physics. I only took the course because it would improve my chances of securing a good job after graduation.

At the time I was debating whether to get my Masters in Mathematics, my favorite subject, or give up further education and start searching for a job. As it was difficult to get a job even after completing a Masters degree, I did not see any benefit in going through with it. For days, I lost sleep over this. Sometimes making a decision can be the most difficult thing in the world.

At last I decided to ask the opinion of my favorite teacher, Mr. Riaz. He had been my teacher in high school, and also continued to help me during college without accepting any fees. When I told Mr. Riaz about my dilemma, he looked into my eyes and said, “Zafar, you may transfer to Mathematics, but you will never be able to complete your Masters in it”.

I looked at him with surprise and asked, “Sir, you know I am one of your best students, if not the best. Why are you saying that I cannot complete my Masters in Mathematics?”

Mr. Riaz replied without any hesitation, “Because you have learned to pull back. When a man learns to pull back he can never succeed in any field.”

His answer went straight to my heart. I suddenly realized that I was trying to find reasons to escape from difficult times. I was accepting defeat without knowing it. I looked into his eyes and said, “Sir, now I will complete my Masters, and I will do it in Applied Physics!”

After two years, I had finished my Masters with high ranks (3.5 GPA.) As I still had no interest in Applied Physics, I never worked in this field. But Mr. Riaz’s advice taught me a lesson, never to pull back, that would let me succeed in any field.

Thank you, Sir Riaz!

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To succeed,look at things not as they are,but as they can be.:)

It was around 1984, right after I graduated from University, that I became sick and was diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB) disease. I was a 25-year old youth, excited about starting life as an adult and there I was confined to bed as a patient of TB. It was the most difficult time of my life when not just my future but my entire life looked very dark to me. I used to cry when alone and asked God, why me? Why among all of my friends, had He chosen me to go through this?

In those days TB was considered a very dreaded disease in Pakistan and the concept of people in general was that if you have TB, you just stay in bed, avoid meeting other people, cough, and eventually die. I imagined the same fate for me. But fortunately by that time, because of advancement in the medical field, TB was a curable disease.

I stayed at home and took medicines for about one year. During this time, I avoided meeting people as much as possible and my parents hid from everyone the fact that I had TB.

Finally, I recovered fully and went back to my life, doing things such as applying to American Universities for admission and taking English language courses.

When I later looked back to those days, I regretted a little about feeling so hopeless and low about everything. You really cannot control sometimes what life throws your way. But you can control what you do about it. Life has a great ability to adjust itself according to the circumstances. People have recovered from deadly diseases such as cancer and have won the Olympics after becoming disabled. The whole world watched in amazement as champion cyclist Lance Arm-strong overcame near-death cancer to win the grueling Tour de France race a record 7 times (consecutively from 1999-2005), through sheer determination and focus.

Someone has said whatever does not kill you makes you stronger. Even if not physically, but definitely mentally.

Today, I feel being diagnosed with TB at the age of 25 is actually not a bad but a good chapter of my life. Making me more proud that I was able to overcome yet another obstacle to succeed in life.

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To succeed,look at things not as they are,but as they can be.:)

I heard this story about George Bernard Dantzig who was a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley in 1939.
George Dantzig arrived late for a statistics class and found two problems written on the blackboard. He assumed they had been assigned for homework and copied them down. He worked very hard to solve those problems but they were very difficult to solve. He still tried to solve them and finally succeeded. He called his professor to apologize as it took him long to solve the problems and asked if he can still submit the homework. The professor told him to throw it on his desk. George Dantzig did so reluctantly because he worked so hard to solve those problems and the professor’s desk was covered with such a heap of papers that he feared his homework would be lost there forever.

A few weeks later, one Sunday morning he was awakened by someone banging on his front door. It was his professor Neyman. The professor rushed in with papers in hand, all excited: "I've just written an introduction to one of your papers. Read it so I can send it out right away for publication." For a minute George Dantzig had no idea what he was talking about. Later he found out that the problems on the blackboard that he had solved thinking they were homework were in fact two famous unsolved problems in statistics.

It’s good that he did not know that those problems were unsolvable. If he had known, he would not have tried or would not have been able to solve them.

I wish that no one told us what is possible and what is impossible. Till one man, Roger Banister, succeeded in running one mile in four minutes, no one would have imagined running so fast. Once people knew that it was possible, about 200 people did it within a year.

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To succeed,look at things not as they are,but as they can be.:)

One man was standing on a peak of a very high mountain, enjoying the scenery of the surrounding beautiful lands. Suddenly his leg slipped and he started to fall down the mountain. As he struggled for dear life, he caught a piece of rock that stuck out a little from the mountainside.

Now he wasn’t falling any more, but he was hanging there helplessly. He couldn’t climb back up, and if he let go he would fall into a deep ravine and die. The man started yelling for help, hoping that someone might come up the mountain and help him. “Help me.... Is anyone there?”

After yelling for a long time, just when he was about to give up, he heard a voice: “This is God. I will help you if you do as I say.”

The man replied quickly, “I promise. I promise. I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. Please save me.”

God replied, “Let go of the rock and I shall save you.”

The man looked down at the dangerous ravine, and thought for a moment about what would happen if he let go of the rock. And then he started yelling again, “Is there anyone else who can help me?”

Whenever we get a chance, we never tire of saying that we have total faith in God. But whenever there is trouble and a test of our beliefs, we refuse to let go; we say, “Is there anyone else who can help me?”

Life and Death are in the hands of Allah, but we hesitate to fight against dishonesty and cruelty. Our job and fortune are in the hands of Allah, we believe, but all the time we are busy making money through dishonesty, corruption, bribes, and other unfair means.

Do we really have true belief in God? Or are we deceiving ourselves as well as others?

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To succeed,look at things not as they are,but as they can be.:)

People often set their goals but are then unable to focus on getting them done. In life, there are many things that can create obstacles. But there are also ways to overcome them. Let me tell you a simple idea that helped an employee and his company to become very rich.

Many years ago, when Bethlehem Steel was a small up-and-coming factory, a young management consultant named Ivy Lee visited Charles Schwab, a manager at the steel plant. (Schwab later became the first man in history to earn a salary of $1 million a year. Obvi-ously Andrew Carnegie, founder of the company, liked Schwab’s ability to get things done.)Lee said that he could help Schwab find better ways to do the things that were necessary to make the company a success. Schwab told him that they already knew how to make steel and knew what needed to be done—but he added, they were not getting those things done.

“Show me how to do the things we ought to be doing,” Schwab challenged, “and we’ll pay you whatever you want.”

Lee said that he could do that in 20 minutes. He even offered to let Schwab use the system and then pay Lee whatever the steel company executive thought it was worth, if anything. Schwab was impressed with Lee’s confidence and told him to proceed.

Lee handed Schwab a piece of paper and said, “Write down the things you have to do tomorrow.”

Schwab did as instructed. “Now number these items in order of importance,” Lee continued.

Schwab did that. Then Lee gave Schwab his instructions. “First thing tomorrow morning, start working on #1 and stay with it until it is completed. Next take #2, and don’t go any further until that is completed. Then proceed to #3, and so on. If you can’t complete everything on the schedule, don’t worry; at least you will have taken care of the
most important things before getting distracted by the items of lesser consequence.”

Lee said that if Schwab completed every item on the list before the day was done, he should make a new list and start on that; or, if any items were left at the end of the day, they could be considered for the next day’s list.

“The secret,” Lee continued, “is to do this daily, evaluate the relative importance of the things you have to get done, establish your priorities, record your plan of action, and stick to it. Test it for as long as you like and then send me a check for whatever you think it is worth.”

In a few weeks, Charles Schwab sent Ivy Lee a check for $25,000. This was big money in the 1930s! Schwab reportedly told his associates that this was the single most valuable idea he had ever received.

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To succeed,look at things not as they are,but as they can be.:)

Hope and Trust

In 1994, the Director of Continuing Education of New York Univer-sity invited me over to discuss my books. He was interested in using them in the University’s computer networking courses. We had set a time for the meeting of 100 a.m.

I hardly ever went to New York, so I wasn’t aware of the heavy morning traffic. I estimated that it would take me an hour to get there, so I left my home in New Jersey one and a half hours before the meeting to be sure I would get there on time. I was nearing New York when I noticed that the road was getting clogged with cars and be-cause of that I was only able to move forward at a very slow pace. I realized that I might not get to the University on time. That meeting was very important to me. I started regretting not leaving my house a little earlier, and started hoping I would get there on time. Sitting in the car, stuck in traffic, angry with myself, and hoping to get there on time, I started to feel very hateful about the word “hope”.

I reached the University half an hour late. When I apologized to the Director, he said that it was fine and mentioned that the traffic there was always heavy. After a short meeting, he asked me to come back after a few days so that he could consult with his faculty about my books. The meeting time was again 100 a.m.

I was really very embarrassed about reaching the University late, and I decided that I never again wanted to be in a situation when I had to resort to “hope” to get something done. Therefore, on the day of the second meeting, I started out at half past six instead of half past eight so that, regardless of the traffic, I could reach my destination on time with “trust” rather than “hope”.

This time I reached the University at about 80 a.m. and was sitting a little way from the director’s office, waiting for the 100 a.m. meeting, when he came out of his office to get some coffee. He was surprised to see me so early. I explained that I had come early to avoid the traffic and that I did not mind waiting, but the Director called me in and started the meeting right away.

Because of this incident, I changed the phrase “the world stands on hope” to “the world stands on hope but is progressing on trust.” On the trust of those people who are determined to succeed in all conditions, good or bad.

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To succeed,look at things not as they are,but as they can be.:)